ce on me, and now all I have is my spinning-wheel, and the flax
not what it used to be, but getting coarser. And my eyes going out, that
were the delight of many ... I hope you're better off nor me at the end
of the hard and dusty road, wee Shane. I hope to my God so...."

Section 4

He thought hard of what the cummer of Cushendhu had said about his
family, and he on the last leg of the mountain. That he was his
father's son puzzled him more than that he was his uncles' nephew, for
there was little mention of his father in the house. At the dead man's
name his prim Huguenot mother from Nantes pursed her mouth, and in her
presence even his uncles were uncomfortable, those great, gallant men.
All he knew was that his father, Colquitto Campbell, had been a great
Gaelic poet, and that his father and mother had not quite been good
friends. Once his Uncle Robin had stopped before a ballad-singer in
Ballycastle when the man was striking up a tune:

On the deck of this lonely ship to America bound,
A husk in my throat and a mist of tears in my eyes--

His Uncle Robin had given the man a guinea.

"Why for did you give the singing man a golden piece, Uncle Robin?"

"For the sake of an old song, laddie, an old and sad song.... A song
your father made.... It was like seeing his ghost...."

"But my father, Uncle Robin--"

"Your father was the heart of corn, wee Shane, for all they say against
him.... I never knew a higher, cleaner heart, but he was easy
discourag't.... Aye, easy thrown down and easy led away.... I was fond
of him.... Am ... always, and no matter.... However ... shall we go and
see the racing boats, wee fellow?"

And that was all he ever got from Uncle Robin. But he knew some of his
father's songs that were sung in the country-side ...

_Is truagh, a ghradh, gan me agas thu im Bla chliath!
No air an traigh bhain an ait nach robh duine riamh,
Seachd oidhche, seachd la, gan tamh, gan chodal, gan bhiadh,
Ach thusa bhi 'm ghraidh's lamh geal thardam gu fial!_

"O God! my loved one, that you and I were in Dublin town! Or on a white
strand, where no foot ever touched before. Day in, night in, without
food or sleep, what mattered it? But you to be loving me and your white
arm around me so generously!"

He couldn't understand the song, though the lilt of the words captured
him. What should people accept being without food or sleep? And what
good was a white arm generously around one? However, that